Animal charity OneKind is stepping up its campaign to stop the mass slaughter of mountain hares on Scottish grouse moors.

You may remember OneKind organised a protest rally at Holyrood last November (see here), with the ingenious idea of replicating that now infamous photo of a truckload of dead mountain hares, with their own truckload of (soft cuddly toy) mountain hares.

They’ve got creative again and this time they’re asking people to sign a giant postcard, calling for an end to mountain hare culls in the National Park. The postcard will be delivered to the Cairngorms National Park Authority before the open season on killing mountain hares begins all over again in August.

I don’t think the Farr Estate is in the Cairngorm National Park , is it? Think it is just outside, but not sure.

[Ed: Farr Estate is in the Monadhliaths, just outside the NP boundary. But that’s kind of irrelevant as OneKind’s postcard petition is not in response to yesterday’s photograph; it’s a response to the long-term mass culling of mountain hares that goes on inside the Cairngorms National Park (and beyond)]

National Parks should be preserving wildlife, not killing it. There is no excuse for this wholesale killing of our beautiful wildlife by those who get no enjoyment out of watching wildlife – they just want to shoot everything in sight. Ban shooting in National Parks!

Really shouldn’t need saying. Many thousands come to the Cairngorms to appreciate the wonders of thr natural world. To prioritise shooting interests over tourism is incredibly short sighted and will have consequences.

There is no real excuse for this mass slaughter . You might think you can justify your acts but they are flimsy excuses!! You feel good about yourself killing animals so defenseless. .you act against nature ..you treat animals as if they have no right to live ..we do not own this earth. .it is not yours ..you are acting like cavemen ..grow up and evolve ! The rest of us are disgusted by your cruelty ..shame on you !

This means that protection of ecosystems and wildlife is not, as it should be, a function of the national park. The Scottish Government when it set up the national park system should have created Category II Nation Parks where areas are managed mainly for ecosystem protection and recreation. At the very least a core area in Cairngorms National Park should have been designated as such.

We are now reaping the consequences of these poor decisions.

We need a national park system fit for purpose in Scotland where the value of fully functioning ecosystems is protected and valued.

There is no excuse for the killing of our wildlife any more. Man disrupted the balance of wildlife in the UK and then tried to justify killing wildlife following this. Absolutely not OK. Enough is enough. The people want it stopped. Start listening to the people of the UK and not what is now the minority.

I hadn’t spotted that, sorry. Today is turning into the day where I realised I needed new glasses. I’ve managed to miss just about everything today. I spent ten minutes earlier looking for a packet of sugar cubes, only to have it pointed out they were right next to my tea mug. I must get my eyes checked.

It’s time to consider the position regarding the entire principle of controlling predators, which is falsely justified simply by tagging them with the label “vermin” or “pest.” I see no reason why foxes should not be protected. It’s only because of country lore and tradition that we continue to persecute them. Personally I would like to see a society in which all wildlife is protected by law, and guns removed from the equation, but this appears to be unrealistic at present due to the fanaticism of our own version of the gun lobby, which insists farmers can’t cope without the ability to kill so-called “vermin.” It is true however that some do, including a few hill sheep farmers who manage to survive without having to control foxes. Surely our understanding of nature and ecology has reached a sufficiently advanced stage to realise that vermin control is unnecessary except where a serious threat to human health is involved. So long as conservationists continue to make exceptions for Red Foxes and Carrion Crows, ignoring scientific evidence, gamekeepers can accuse us of hypocrisy. I suspect few readers of RPUK are aware that crows have been taking a hammering since the rise of the Countryside Alliance, in effect because ignorant farmers, gamekeepers and wildly right-wing “country sports” supporters are taking out their frustration against enlightened people, aka “townies.”

A NATIONAL park ?! Nothing national about it!!!!! It should be called the park that takes public money to do what the hell we like with and you dont get a say! All to apease elitist millionaires who no doubt slip back handers to the scum in charge of our so called National parks! National Park! How many parks near you allow the killing of endangered spcies to benefit an elitist sport?!

No doubt these numpties think of it as maintaining the balance of nature. Trouble is, their scales are well and truly out of kilter and heavily biassed in favour of grouse protection. Are they so blinkered that they can’t (or won’t) see this? Strikes me that they’re looking for spurious reasons to eliminate everything except grouse from their killing fields. Thanks Alister for clarifying the legal status of National Parks. As far as wildlife is concerned, it appears to me that ‘Notional Parks’ would be a more accurate title!

There should be no shooting in a National Park, it should be a sanctuary for wildlife to find it’s own balance in nature, if gamekeepers etc. did not kill Raptors that prey on Mountain Hares, then the hare numbers would be kept down at a lower level by those very raptors, no need for any culling. As usual man has to interfere to with nature for his own ends and has the cheek to call it land/estate management.

An industry that is Absolutely revolting in every particular. Such a shame that the only way these individuals can enjoy themselves results in the wanton destruction of two species. If only someone could develop a pill that could cure these people of their bloodlust.

Surely this is another “less than subtle” case of removing competition from the grouse on the moor and at the same time adding to their income. The result is that the more natural annual food source for eagles is massively diminished in a few hours. Clearly this can also have the desired effect of forcing the raptors to leave the area in the search for prey.